


Plan Q (Or the One Where The Left Hand Doesn't Know That The Right Hand Totally Knows What It's Doing)

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, Hardison is a cinnamon roll, Investigations, Meddling, Meddling Kids, Miscommunication, Present Tense, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9270701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: One romantic night in Tuscany, Nate and Sophie's evening is interrupted when Nate accidentally sniffs out someone in need.  Lucky for him, Sophie is understanding (and soft-hearted).  Lucky for both of them, Hardison left cloning software on their phones, so they can listen in on what's about to go down.Lucky for everyone, Hardison doesn't "accidentally" leave his software anywhere.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vicky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicky/gifts).



> Okay, yes, took a somewhat radical turn there at the end...hope you enjoy it! Thank you so much for playing with us again this year - it's always such a pleasure to see you sign up!

Sophie knows that look; the slight narrowing of the eyes, a thinning of the lips as he sees something out of sync with the world around them. She’s learned over the years that his shoulders tense too, as his brain goes to work deconstructing the anomaly and analyzing each piece to determine whether the problem needs his full attention or not.

Sometimes Sophie desperately hates that look. “Really?”

It takes him nearly two full seconds to realize she’s spoken – never mind that she’s slipped her arm entirely free of his – which means that whatever this scent is he’s caught, they’re not making it to the restaurant tonight. “What?”

 _Eyes wide, trying to act like he hasn’t just been busted…_ Forget dinner; they’re not making it back to the _villa_ tonight. “What? What do you mean, what? You’ve seen something that’s put you out of sorts all of a sudden; what is it?”

He tries to hold on to his innocent act, but Sophie has no patience to spare for something she only finds marginally charming under the best of circumstances. Which, since she’s already trying to make her peace with missing out on some of the best lasagna al forno in the region, these definitely aren’t.

Gradually Nate’s defensive posture relaxes and he takes her hand; maneuvering her so that her arm is looped neatly into his again. “Girl standing at the edge of the piazza to our left,” he tells her, his voice low enough that likely only the two of them can hear. They join the throng of couples strolling back and forth the length of the town square, and when they turn Sophie spots exactly who has caught her husband’s eye.

“She look upset to you?” Nate asks, and Sophie can only assume it’s some kind of holdover from her days as an honest to goodness ‘bad guy’ that kept her from noticing the girl herself.

 _Upset is such an imprecise word._ “She’s nervous – scared,” she tells Nate, keeping the girl at the edge of her vision for as long as she can. “She keeps looking around for something or someone – if she was depressed or sad her body language would be different.” She pauses, getting her head more fully in the game. “How do you want to play it?”

His answering smile is practically glowing in the lamp-lit twilight – that grin that in all the years they’ve been dancing around each other Sophie has never managed to be able to resist. “I think I need some gelato,” he declares, steering them both towards the sweet shop at the edge of the piazza – conveniently just behind the girl who has officially turned their evening on its head.

Nate handles the lift; wallet and cell phone. Sophie drifts close enough to see the photo clutched in the girl’s hand – a baby; girl by the look of the pink headband, no more than a few months old. Even as she holds her character firmly in place, Sophie adds up all the markers and comes up with nothing good. As they reach the tables in front of the shop, she slips the wallet from Nate, who is already intent on the phone.

 _Kids…_ Whatever this is that they’ve stumbled into, it’s not going to end well.  
****************************************  
It takes Nate a few tries to activate the cloning software Hardison had installed on their phones “just in case”, but once he has the right indicators moving in the right direction, the process doesn’t take long.

Sophie has already made short work of the wallet. “Gianna Parisi,” she tells him, keeping her voice low. A picture of their target with an infant in her arms is taken out of the wallet, flipped over. “Anna Maria. Nate, whatever we’re looking at here, this child is part of it.”

 _Kidnapping…illness…mother forced into a corner…_ Each possibility Nate’s brain threw at him was worse than the last. “Get these back to her. If she’s waiting for a ransom call, we’re in the way.” As Sophie hurries off, Nate tries to set Hardison’s software to capture whatever information comes in on the next set of calls to Gianna Parisi’s phone instead of intercepting them outright.

Sophie’s voice is carried back to him on the night breeze – light, breathless, _”did you drop these?”_ He knows she’s annoyed with him for derailing their evening, but the days when she could overlook someone in such obvious distress are long and well gone. He’ll make the evening up to her.

He’s gotten good at that.

The contact comes quickly – in the form of a text, not a call. Instructions to carry a package to an art studio on the edge of town. He knows it, although he hasn’t brought it to Sophie’s attention yet. Although she’s given him no reason for his fears, he still equates taking her to a studio to someone dragging him to a bar or pub.

A video file comes through next. Nate clicks it open as Sophie returns to his side. It’s the baby – _Anna Maria_ \- smiling and healthy, although the implication that this could quickly change rises darkly in his thoughts.

“Kidnapping?” Sophie asks, watching the video over his shoulder.

He makes a non-committal sound. “I don’t think it’s for ransom. Gut says the baby’s being used to leverage the mother to do something.” Looking over Sophie’s shoulder at the piazza, he sees the girl heading for the shadows. “Feel like taking a walk?”

Smiling much too brightly, Sophie loops her arm in his again. “I thought you’d never ask.”  
****************************  
She’ll never admit it to him directly, but Sophie is almost relieved to be on the hunt again. Her senses feel sharper, and the world around them is suddenly so clear it practically sparkles. She and Nate talk about everything and nothing as they leave the square, following Gianna into the shadows.

It’s only once their target steps into a modest looking storefront bearing the overly simplistic legend “Studio Del’Arte” that Nate steps away from his cover to remark. “Eliot would be very upset with us right now.”

Thinking of the hitter, Sophie grins. “What do you mean ‘us’? We’re about to enter an unknown building investigating an unknown crime with next to no intel. He’d put this all on you.”

Sophie sees him taste her assessment and decide that he likes it. “You think we should call them?”

She most certainly does _not_. “And tell them what? May I point out, my darling, that we don’t even know this is a crime we’re about to walk in on?”

He’s teasing her, of course. “Tuscan Honeymoon, then?” He holds out his arm for her, and Sophie takes it, smiling once more.

“I like your thinking, Mr. Ford. I like it very much.”  
*************************************  
Half a world away, Hardison’s monitors are flashing images faster than the human eye can follow, as he processes the information being fed to them from the software on Nate’s phone.

“Why hasn’t he called?” Parker asks, holding up her phone to get the hacker’s attention. “He cloned that cell phone half an hour ago. You said these guys were moving drugs and weapons – why hasn’t he called to bring us in?”

“Quinn’s not in the region,” Eliot announces, finishing his call and joining Parker and Hardison at the main desk. “He gave me a lead on Mykel – she might be able to get in to position faster.” He glances up at the blur of images. “You’re sure this guy’s moving weapons? That’s a really small town they’re set up in.”

Hardison doesn’t look up from his own tablet. “You guys need to give me at least five minutes to sort through this mess.” He exhales sharply. “I can’t believe it took him this long to activate the software! What the hell have the two of them been up to?”

Eliot snorts. “You explain it to him,” he says to Parker. “I need to find Mykel.”

Parker studies the hacker for a long moment, then decides to let it go. Hardison has plunged back into the deep end of his data mining and sorting, and likely doesn’t even remember what he said – much less why he said it. She glances down at her own phone again, wrestling with whether or not to call Nate – relieving him of the question of whether or not to ask for help.

 _It doesn’t make sense,_ she thinks, shoving the phone in her pocket again. The fact that it doesn’t bothers her – even when Nate’s decisions seemed to come flying out of nowhere, Parker was always able to look back and retrace his steps to understand why he’d moved everything the way he had. This time… _it’s like he just stumbled into an international smuggling ring. Like he really doesn’t know what’s going on!_

Which is ridiculous, of course. By the time the tension in Hardison’s shoulders begins to ease – the first signal that he’s getting ready to report – Parker has started to make peace with the idea that even though she can’t follow Nate’s thoughts or anticipate his plans this time, everything will become clear in due course.

“If you ever need us,” she mutters, flexing her fingers around the back of a nearby chair. Nate might or might not have remembered that such promises go both ways.

Parker will never forget.


End file.
